Shares in FTSE 100 education publisher Pearson jumped today after it moved its full-year profit expectations to the upper end of its previous guidance.

Pearson, which recently sold media properties the Financial Times and the Economist to focus solely on education, said sales continued to fall, especially in the US, but also noted that they were stabilising thanks to growth in its digital business.

The group now expects adjusted operating profit for this year to come in between £576million and £606million, up from previous expectations of £546-606million.

Shares in the company were almost 8 per cent higher at 670.75p on Tuesday.

In a trading update for the first nine months of this year, Pearson said sales in its US higher education courseware - or the textbooks it sells through libraries at university campuses - fell 1 per cent.

This is its biggest division, but the group said the decline had been partially offset by ‘significantly’ lower returns of textbooks which had not been sold and good growth in digital revenues, which were up 11 per cent.

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Pearson, which provides everything from school textbooks to academic courseware and electronic testing, has seen sales decrease as students increasingly rent textbooks instead of buying them.

It has had a difficult time of late and in February posted a dismal set of annual results, which included a £2.5billion impairment charge, pushing it to a record £2.6billion loss.

But Pearson chief executive John Fallon was positive after the less-than-expected decline in US sales and said: ‘We are confident we are on a path to return Pearson to long-term and sustainable growth.

‘This is encouraging but there is still a long way for us to go.’

The group also revised its guidance on taxation, expecting a 2017 rate around 16 per cent against a previous expectation of 21 per cent.

Nicholas Hyett, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: ‘In some ways it’s a rather mixed set of results. On the one hand profit expectations have been narrowed – reflecting a revenue performance in line with management expectations and lower costs.

‘On the other, sales continue to fall, particularly in the US, and current headwinds are expected to continue into the medium-term.’

However, he added that overall, these are positive results for Pearson.

‘The imminent launch of the £300million share buyback is welcome, and favorable outcomes in historic tax issues mean that the adjusted tax rate for 2017 is expected to be 5 percentage points lower than previously thought.

‘More important than these one-off benefits are signs that the fall in sales seems to be stabilising. That reflects good growth in digital courseware in the US, which is important since the group’s strategy pivots on becoming the long term winner in digital learning.’